I know, it's been a while!

Wow..it's been a while since my last post, this might end up being a long one, but we'll see! Life has been a bit busier than usual with horse shows every weekend, starting the last of my master's classes, and all of the other random things that occur on a daily basis.  But the good news is that it hasn't affected my dedication to eating paleo!

So where to start...let's start with a couple days before Valentine's Day.

On Tuesday morning, I was supposed to get a relaxing massage from my massage therapist, +Deborah Shahadey, but I got a call about 15 minutes before my appointment to say that she had to cancel because one of her goats was going into labor.  I ended up going over anyway, because I can't pass up seeing cute babies, but unfortunately her goat didn't want to have to have her babies until later that night.  In the meantime though, I got to visit with all of the chickens that have been providing me with the yummy eggs I eat for breakfast every morning.

 Thanks for your eggs, ladies!!!



        















 The next day, I got to visit these two cuties...

Now I realize that they don't have anything to do with the food I'm making, but I just couldn't resist.  So back to the food...I got an early Valentine's Day present from one of my lessons and I thought it was quite cute!  My present came with the explanation that since I can't eat chocolates, they got me these...

Perfect paleo present!

That night, I heated up some leftover chicken, steamed some broccoli and white asparagus. Speaking of leftovers, anyone have any favorite methods for re-heating meat?  I put the chicken in the microwave (just because it was fast), but it left the chicken completely dry and not that exciting. Any suggestions would be great!

 

Valentine's Day proved to be a quite busy day, and unfortunately, not due to all of my hot dates...lol! I didn't get home until after 9:30 that night, so I simply rubbed some of the Emeril's Original Essence Seasoning that I had left over from another recipe and put it on the grill.  I also steamed some green beans and in less than 15 minutes later, I had a delicious meal!

This past weekend, my school hosted a horse show, and I was worried about having enough time to cook/prepare food and eat well.  Turns out, I had nothing to worry about. My dad, as usual, stayed with me for the weekend so on Friday night, I made him a meal of Balsamic, Garlic, and Basil Marinated Chicken Breasts, mushrooms and minced garlic sauteed in clarified butter, steamed white asparagus, and some Kale with cranberries and roasted pine nuts.  I marinated the chicken for almost 24 hours and it was good, I just figured it would have even more flavoring than it did and it certainly didn't come out looking like the picture on the recipe website. But here it is...

My dad thoroughly enjoyed the meal and even experienced two firsts: eating kale and eating white asparagus.  And even better, he's planning on spending spring break with me to try the paleo thing for the week, however he informed me that he's not giving up his morning coffee, but we'll see about that!

As for the days of the shows, I made my normal breakfast each morning and made my salads for lunch the nights before.  I actually had multiple people comment on how good my salads looked each day and they tasted just as good.  The thing that was the most tempting was the smell of grilled cheese sandwiches from the concession stand wafting through the indoor arena, but I resisted!  Yay me!

On Sunday night, my dad and I ended up going to TGI Friday's for dinner and I ordered the Bacon and Blue 10 oz. sirloin (sans blue cheese) with steamed broccoli and a side salad.  Everything was delicious and my dad couldn't stop raving about their beer selection...it was quite good, even though I only had a sip of one of my dad's.

Thank you, Friday's!

Well, I better get going because I'm planning on doing some cooking on my day off.  I hope you're all having a lovely President's Day, even if you don't have the day off! :)